From CPAC child star to reporter

Krohn, as you’ll recall, is the Georgia native who rose to prominence in 2009 as a conservative boy wonder and, at only 13, wowed the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Krohn made the news again last year when it was revealed that he had denounced his previous ways and swung his political views leftward.

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Chillin' with Krohn

Krohn speaks at CPAC

His latest act? Political reporter. On a break from his undergraduate studies at New York University, Krohn, who turns 18 on March 1, has been spotted walking the halls of Capitol Hill with press credentials from the liberal magazine Mother Jones as he works on freelancing pieces for various news outlets.

“It’s a wonktastic article, on everything you really would ever want to know about everything on rules: The rules reform debate, where it is now, and I analyzed every section of the proposals,” Krohn says with all the enthusiasm you’d expect from a rookie reporter.

“The New Republic also tweeted it out and they loved it,” Krohn said. “They thought it was definitely the best explanation of everything.”

Mother Jones co-editor Monika Bauerlein clarifies that Krohn is merely a freelancer for the magazine, not a full-time, paid staffer but is enthusiastic nonetheless.

“It’s not every day you get pitches from someone who’s been a Senate rules buff since age 8,” she said.

Krohn is hoping to keep up his freelance career: He attended Wednesday’s Capitol Hill hearings on Benghazi and has plans to cover the National Review Summit this weekend for The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in Salon and The New York Times’s East Village blog. He also wrote a column for a short while at Vice magazine, but he says “I quit. I didn’t like it there.”

Considering that he swore off political punditry in the wake of his post-CPAC about-face, Krohn is quick to clarify: This is not punditry.

“This isn’t about me. I don’t put my opinions into it. It’s just journalism. I get to learn from people. I get to understand other people. It’s never about me. I never want to do things about me.”

Still, he does get recognized in the halls of Congress. “Some of the other journalists on the Hill, they would see my badge and see my name and say, ‘Hey, you’re that kid.’”

Krohn returns to NYU for classes next week but doesn’t plan on stopping reporting; he says he’s applying for a job to cover the city’s mayoral race full time. Washington clearly gave him the bug.

“Doing stuff on the Hill is the most fun I’ve ever had. It’s crazy. It’s wonderful. And the people are cool, and it’s a different experience.”